Ann Arbor

Ann Arbor was Anishinaabe land long before it had its current name — the Potawatomi had villages here in the 1700s, and called the place Kaw-goosh-kaw-nick. In 1824, two settlers named John Allen and Elisha Rumsey bought 640 acres for $800 and registered the town as “Annarbour.” The name’s a sweet little mystery: both men’s wives were named Ann, and the land was full of bur-oak groves — “arbors.” Ann + arbor. Nobody’s totally sure which Ann gets the credit, but the trees did the rest.

Here’s the twist that made the city: in 1837, Ann Arbor lost its bid to become Michigan’s state capital — and as a consolation prize, got the University of Michigan instead, which had been kicking around Detroit since 1817. Best runner-up trophy in state history. First classes were held in 1841 for a grand total of seven students; today U-M is one of the great research universities on earth, and the city grew up entirely around it.

What that university did to the place is the fun part. Ann Arbor became a hotbed of ’60s activism (JFK first pitched the Peace Corps on the steps of the Michigan Union; LBJ launched the “Great Society” at a U-M commencement), an absurdly fertile music scene (the MC5, Iggy Pop and the Stooges, plus a young dance major named Madonna), and one of the first U.S. cities to basically decriminalize weed. It’s brainy, leafy, progressive, food-obsessed, and football-mad — a town with a genuine point of view. Worth the drive from anywhere in the metro.

Ann Arbor’s a place people pass through on their way to being famous — and a few who came up right here. The wild Ann Arbor/Ypsilanti music scene gave the world Iggy Pop and the Stooges and the proto-punk MC5; Madonna studied dance at U-M before heading to New York; and George Clinton, Bob Seger, and Alice Cooper all spent formative time in town.

Add a couple centuries of U-M alumni — astronauts, authors, a U.S. president (Gerald Ford played football here) — and you’ve got a town that quietly shaped a lot of American culture between exams.